What Defines Him
by Eternal Dumas
Summary: When the life he once knows is destroyed, a small Empyrean child finds one last thing worth protecting.
1. The Fall of Ghent

The earliest memory Skies has of the Empyrean war against the Kartels, was also the day—not surprisingly—that he lost his childhood.

Because a child was not meant to see his neighbors beheaded by a group of maniacal men who then proceeded to rape their disembodied corpses. A child was not meant to huddle in the darkest corner of a ruined and smoking house, forced to keep quiet so he would not be discovered by the group of men gouging out the eyes of the nice store owners that had always given Skies free treats when he ran small errands for them. A child was not meant to see the backs of his father and mother as they headed into battle and then hear them scream as their bodies were ripped open by bullets. A child was not meant to be running through corpse-filled streets surrounded by burning buildings that were filled with howling, trigger-happy men straight out of Hell.

Skies cried. He cried and cried until he felt sure his lungs would shrivel from all the air he had taken out of them. He cried until he was choking on the smoke from all the burnt buildings around him. He cried because everything that had defined who he was—his home, his parents, his _life_—were now gone.

But just when the nightmarish reality of war was ready to destroy Skies, a pair of tiny, chubby hands reached out to him.

He looked down, almost dumbfounded, at the pair of innocent, sparkling green eyes that watched him with concern. Those small baby hands that would often wrap themselves around Skies' finger were now patting away the tears that had begun to stream down Skies' face.

And then Skies remembered that he hadn't lost everything. His parents had entrusted him with one last wish before they had gone off.

"_Protect your little brother Skies," _His mother's words.

He looked at the cooing, little baby bundled in white blankets and still held protectively in his arms. Even in the midst of madness that was war, Skies had never let go of him.

"Vicious," he murmured. "My little brother."

In the distance, the burning city of Ghent continued to fill with the sound of war. Skies sat in the desert outside the outskirts of the city, sheltered by a decrepit brick wall and let Vicious pat away all the tears that fell from his face.

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>Something I wrote a couple days ago, and wanted to add to the DFO community (cause there's almost nothing on this site *sadface*)

I have no idea if I'm ever going to continue this. Anybody think it's worth continuing?


	2. Training Years

A bullet grazed the left of the tree trunk, chipping the wood.

Varracht scoffed. "Your aim is as horrendous as always."

Sixteen-year-old Skies glared at him from where he stood fifty feet from the tree. "You're the one who said I needed to practice. And I'm practicing."

"Your brother can shoot the dead center of the tree from two hundred feet away."

Skies scowled, his expression darkening. "You promised not to teach Vicious."

"And do you realize how ludicrous of a request that is? This is the Lawless District."

"I'll just be strong enough so that he won't have to fight. I can protect us both." Skies turned back towards the tree and leveled the gun again.

"With your aim, that's just a naive dream. I'm making sure Vicious can at least defend himself if anything does happen."

"I won't let anything happen," Skies vowed, shooting the bullet into the center of the tree. He fired three more rounds into the tree, each bullet creating small little holes just a few centimeters from one another.

"How long has it been?" Varracht abruptly asked.

"What?"

"How long has it been since I picked you two up from those ruins outside of Ghent?"

"Nine years," Skies eventually answered as he loaded a new cartridge into his gun. He would not look at Varracht.

"And in those nine years, how long did it take you to learn how to shoot a gun properly?"

This time, Skies' silence was even longer before he answered. "Two years," he finally muttered, already knowing what Varracht was going to say next.

"And how long did it take Vicious to do the same thing?"

"A month, but Varracht that doesn't mean-"

"He can fight?" Varracht finished for Skies. "That is where you are wrong. He has more skills with a gun and more potential than most men in the Lawless District, including the Kartels. What you're doing now by forbidding him is squashing that talent and letting it go to waste. He'll grow weak and before you know it, he'll have a bullet embedded in his skull."

"Like I said, I won't let it happen!" Skies yelled, turning to face Varracht with anger in his eyes. "I'll protect us both! I'll be strong! Stronger than anyone else in this god forsaken wasteland!"

Varracht's expression grew weary, and almost sad. "What do you think you're doing, bearing this burden alone?"

Skies was silent, but the anger in his eyes had disappeared.

"You're still just a brat, not even close to being a man and yet you want to challenge the whole world?"

"If this is what it takes to stay alive," was Skies' answer.

"Why won't you let Vicious help you bear that burden?" Varracht demanded. "You two are brothers, you only have each other."

"That's exactly why I can't let him fight," Skies answered, looking up to the sky. "I have always been haunted, since the night our parents died, by a nightmare. I would dream of me and Vicious, facing off against a horde of faceless men, the air ablaze with smoke and red streaks of light like miniature shooting stars flying around us. And when it was all over with all the faceless men dead I would turn around to look for Vicious and he...he..." Skies choked, bringing his gun to press against his forehead, looking for support in the cold, inanimate object.. "He would be dead on the ground with the faceless men, a single bullet in his chest and I...I would die then too. From the pain known as loneliness."

Skies turned back to Varracht then, his eyes wide and pleading. "Do you understand Varracht? As long as I am strong enough so that Vicious does not have to fight, I don't have to worry about losing him. There won't be any chance of it." Skies swallowed. "I can't think of a world where I am alive and he is dead. No, I could imagine it but that world would be nothing less than Hell."

Varracht sighed, closing his eyes. "I understand Skies. But if I'm going to keep teaching you how to fight, at least now I know you don't have the makings of a Ranger in you."

"Then what can I be?"

Varracht's hand went up to stroke his beard. "How about...a Spitfire?"

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>Yeah, I don't know what to say here. I just wish there were more people who wrote stories for DFO and put them on here :(


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